Broken Ground

Spirit Animals: Fall of the Beasts #2

by Victoria Schwab

A new threat faces the world of Erdas in this continuation of the New York Times bestselling series.

Something ancient and evil has awoken from beneath the world of Erdas. Shrouded in shadow and older than memory, just a sliver of its power can destroy with a touch. Even the spirit animal bond, the sacred link between humans and animals that keeps Erdas in balance, is under threat. Four young heroes, Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan, are determined to stop it. Together with their spirit animals, they embark on a desperate journey that takes them deep underground and to the far corners of the world. As friends and allies fall around them, the four have no choice but to push forward and confront this darkness. If they stop to look back, they'll see the Evil already has them surrounded.

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Audiobook, Fiction, Childrens, Animals, Young Adult

195 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 22, 2015

About the author

This author also writes under the name of V.E. Schwab.

VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades universe, the Villains series, the City of Ghosts series, Gallant, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Fragile Threads of Power. When not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she can be found in Edinburgh, Scotland, tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.

Reviews

[Victoria Schwab]

I had SO much fun writing the second installment in the FALL OF THE BEASTS series. And of course, my book is full of inner demons and outer monsters ;)

[Kasia (kasikowykurz) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I'm in!

Tak cos czułam, że ten drugi tom już mnie zaczaruje. Jakie to jest cudownie mroczne! W porównaniu z pierwsza serię, tutaj dzieje się o wiele więcej, jest brutalniej. Nie czekamy na rozwinięcie akcji, bo już wszystko wiemy i od razu zostajemy rzuceni na głęboką wodę. Jest zachwyt, a ja biegnę dalej, bo musze wiedzieć, co będzie dalej <3

[☆ Mira ✷]

anything marked "Victoria Schwab" is on my radar even if it's some random MG series I wouldn't even look at :')

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Broken Ground: Fantastic writing, but does that make up for lack of plot?

Another book I’m torn about. I’m still a bit upset that this series was extended after it wrapped up so nicely, but I’m coming around to this new plotline thanks to the wonderful writing from Victoria Schwab.

Honestly, she made this series so much more amazing than it was before. Her writing is worlds away from the last book! I’ve never read anything else by her, but she has a way of making everything sound interesting and important. Her style is sophisticated yet fun and it works great with the series. I can’t wait to read some of her works!

I have an issue with a series written by multiple people. Usually there are a few amazing writers, and then we get some other writers way below that level and the series ends up feeling really inconsistent. Like we have the amazing Victoria Schwab here, and the next writer is…Varian Johnson? Who?

I think the new arc is kind of odd. Like there is some sort of plague, and original spirit animals coming back, and Zerif? I guess at this point I’m liking it more than before.

I hope the characters reunite soon, because one of the best parts of this series is the group dynamic. The characters have been split up for the most of the last two books, and I wish the characters who had more chemistry together could have been the ones traveling together.

I don’t feel like a ton happened in this specific book, but the writing and epic cliffhanger kind of make up for it and I’m excited for the next one!

[Lizzie Hutchings · Rating 4 out of 5]

lol, props to V.E.S. for giving me the most creepy-a villain I've ever seen in a middle grade novel. Hah.

"There are no easy roads in life. There are no hard ones either. There are only paths we choose to take, and the places they lead us."

"Oh, yeah? What about when you choose one path, but it's filled with white-eyed monsters, so you have to double back and take the other road?"

This book was infinitely better than I was initially expecting. The characters were so like V.E.'s other characters. Full of life, depth, and strength. My favorite character was Rollan, who was just adorable and insecure and desperately needed a hug.

One critique I would make of this book is that it wasn't quite long enough. I wanted to see more plot, I wanted to see the gang come together, but I was definitely stuck in an extremely long cave-scene for literally half the book.

Also, the VILLAIN definitely needed more page time, because he was soooooo cool and hecka creepy. Also, the pArAsiTe?!?!?



Bully Maguire, I figured out where Venom came from...this bOoK!

ANyways, have a lovely Sunday 🕷.

[Lena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy frickin dang can Victoria Schwab write

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

~4.9~

book 8 of schwab-athon DONE!

um...okay Queen Schwab. I was not expecting this.

OH MY HEAVENS did I love this book. I was 100% not expecting to like this very much but what can I say? I am a sucker for Schwab's novels. (haha see what I did there angie?)

this was the second book in apparently the second series of the Spirit Animals. Might I add, I have never read a single spirit animal book before this one, so as it can be imagined, I was SUPER confused in the beginning. I was like Angelina when she picked up The Wicked King instead of The Cruel Prince haha. I was supposed to already know all the characters and their different spirit animals and the villains and basically the whole plot, which I did end up figuring out with some help from google.

The villains (i am pretty sure are both Zerif and The Wyrm) were SO INCREDIBLY EPICC. they were so creepy and it gave me chills when the parasite (The Wyrm) was infecting everyone.

I felt very connected with the four main characters instantly. That, my friends, means that we should all give three cheers for Queen Schwab. I loved each of them, but my fav was Rollan. I felt like I related to him. However, I am still trying to decide whose spirit animal was the coolest. The Falcon, Wolf, Leopard, or the Panda. Probably Leopard.

This wasn't much of a plot-driven story because it was the second out of like seven books but it was still so intriguing, but it isn't very long haha. There were many moments when I was begging for more and I was actually very disappointed when it ended, I just wanted more!

but that's the thing. I feel like I want to read this whole series but...there is a small problem. there are no more that is written by our dear Queen Schwab. I don't know if I can handle it being written by so many different authors when I have read it by the best one. But I mean...I will never know if I don't try...so maybe in the future, you shall see me pulling these books out of my pocket and binge-reading them all haha.

anyways, I honestly do hope that I read more of these later because I truly did love this book and would love to finish this story because it kind of did end on a cliffhanger...heh.

anyways! I hope everyone has a wonderful evening! : )

[Cienna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay so if this wasn't a kids book I would have given it a 5 star rating. However, this is a very very dark book targeted towards children. Not that you can't do that but literally 12 year olds are shooting their friends-turned-zombie down with arrows to the face. Yikes. But hell, I'm here for it.

[Angel Velasquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Animal spirit

This weekend i read “ animal spirit fall of the beasts’’ by Victoria Schwab. The book was about two kids called Abeke and Ronald. They are searching for zurick the bad guy in the village.

As Abeke and Ronald are searching for the village they found Abekes friend that is going to take them to the village, but in the way they face a storm and they stop for a while.

When the storm had stopped they started the journey to the village. It was still gray in the sky, when they got to the village Abeke saw many colors in the sky Ronald said that they were fireworks. The fireworks were somewhere near to them and they went to see it when they got there Abeke was getting dizzy and sick just for seeing all the people in the village.

After a while abeke and ronald saw a figure and they chased him. When they got the figure he said to go somewhere save because zuzrick was in the village and abeke and ronald did not had time to talk to him because they needed to rescue the animals before zurick had take them.


I love this book animal spirit and i hope you would too!.

[Manon the Malicious · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.25 Stars*

If you've been friends with me for a little while, you should know how much I love Victoria Schwab. (I usually call her Queen Schwab....) Everything she writes, I fall in love with. This was somehow different but also not.

This was different because the characters in this book were not hers and I could tell. But it also wasn't because her writing gripped me from beginning to end and I couldn't put this book down. I was a bit lost in the first book since this is a spin-off series and I haven't read the original series but since I read the previous book, I wasn't so lost anymore and it just left me wanting more. I really got into the plot and I just want to know what's going to happen next. I wouldn't know how to summarize this though since it's a pretty well-built world and I wouldn't know where to start. But really, if you like adventure and fantasy and middle-grade books, you should give those series a chance.

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was rated by my 12 year old son.

[Rachel M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will leave you waiting for more. An cliff hanger has never been so high, ever before.

[Maciej Gospodarek · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5⭐

[Emily Traasdahl]

Good book.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overview: This book is not for educational purposes and is fairly violent, but free of inappropriate romance or language.

Educational Value: Not applicable.
Violence: High. Parasitic worms crawl under skin up to foreheads and take over victims' minds. A victim is threatened with broken bones if a whole roomful of people doesn't agree to let the worm take over their minds. An attack by zombie-like victims of the parasite leads to main characters using arrows and knives to kill them. A march through an underground world includes many perils: a giant tentacled attacker, spiders (many small, one giant), a raging fire that traps one spirit animal, a pit of those zombie-like creatures, and a fall from a cliff.
Romance: Not applicable.
Language: Not applicable.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ayayay things are going bad! This author made a good but kind of uncreative induction to the series.

[Akoss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though this is a publisher planned series I could tell Victoria Schwab wrote it. It's such a pleasure to find lines that only she would write. She managed to put her brand on the story.

[Victoria G · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very well written book but I'm forced to leave it at 3 stars because it's so darn depressing.

This new arc plotline is more hopeless than ever, the odds are so stacked against our fave kiddos that I want to weep. The Spirit animals series had previously been very bleak (what's with you and taking everything away from our heroes???) but Broken ground was a new low.

I think this is why you can't expect these series to ever really get the popularity they deserve even though the writing is impeccable and the characters are great.

You can't write children's books and set the protagonists at currently 12 years old and keep churning out losses after losses while making the enemy more and more powerful.

That book has so little chance of hope that half of our MCs start as a group desperately trapped underground and it gets worse in the end with them ending up lost in the darkness and their only guide gone.

The enemy is stronger than ever. What previously seemed like a horde of zombies (bad enough) is now a horde of almost sentient zombies, who can infect anyone in seconds on a whim, can be directed from a great distance, and are traveling on the earth, air and water with no issues. No space is impenetrable for them, no way to stop the infection once it started, and depending on how cleverly the zombie infected the victim they could turn into a new functional zombie in minutes.

Ummm great??? There's a reason why zombies are dumb usually - it's because if they're too powerful realistically the whole world would get overtaken in days. No one can be expected to win against this.

It's honestly too much. I'll have to pause the series after this one and go read something completely different to calm myself.

[Brittney Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wish they would stop saying the full title of all the Great Beasts. This is the 9th book in the series, we know who they are and who they're bonded to. Suka the Polar Bear, Arax the Ram, Anda's spirit animal, Tellun. I don't want or need it every single time every single one comes up.

Them wanting to send Anda home because of what happened with Tellun doesn't make sense. If you are trying to get him back, who better to help than the guy that summoned him? I get he's not really combat oriented, but that doesn't mean there's no place for him. Plus, it saves the trip of getting Tellun back to him once he is rescued and saves them both the pain of being apart that long. They would have to make the trip to return Anda anyway, now they have to make it twice. Inefficient.

I'm really enjoying the humor. They frequently make the best of the situation, quite entertainingly which is a vast difference from when they started. I'm very happy with the character development and how they aren't letting the terrible events shatter them.

Sometimes their inability to figure things out is frustrating. Could the "slice" of red be a coincidence? Well considering you are trying to find people wearing red, probably not. It's the seagull all over again. Could the celebration where there are a bunch of birds painted white perhaps be celebrating the white bird? Who knows, apparently.

The villan has truly gone off the deep end and I love it. He is exactly what I picture the villan of this world to be and it written perfectly. I'm really happy with the writing itself. A few things were a little silly, but I think this was a really good one!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that I had read the first Spirit Animals book, so I was confused when I started this book, not really knowing what was going on. It turned out that I had read the first of the Spirit Animals Special Edition books (Wild Born, by Brandon Mull) rather than the first of the Fall of the Beasts series. I did know some of the characters and was able to follow along well enough, but I want to go back and read Immortal Guardians, to fill in those gaps. These books are definitely not stand-alone books. If you start in the wrong book there is enough information there that you can stick with it, but this book itself really had no resolution. To know what happens next I imagine you need to read the entire series.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broken Ground is a great book written by Victoria Schwab and is the 2nd book of the 2nd series of Spirit Animals.

I think that a story filled with tragedy, loss and monster of every kind would be Broken Ground. The book starts with 3 mysterious red cloaked figures standing on the rooftops which make you feel like you want to know their true identities.

The book is very descriptive as it tells you how someone does something. It is also filled with a lot of suspense which is always in a good book.

What I think that can be improved is that the story should not alternate between one place and another very often as a got very confused.

However, I think that this book is good and should be for children aged 8 and above. I would rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

[Joseph Carrabis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think one of the ways you can tell a YA novelist is excellent is if, when an adult reads the book, that adult feels a child's excitement during the reading, that "oh, what's going to happen next?" joy of the child being surprised and thrilled by the worlds revealed.
That's what I experienced reading Broken Ground. I'll be picking up some of Victoria Schwab's adult novels and hoping she can do to my adult, cynical heart what she did for my inner child, and we both will thank you, Ms. Schwab, for it.

[Garret Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the “Worm Trilogy” portion of this second series in the Spirit Animals saga. It felt like our heroes were fighting such impossible foes. I like the terribly difficult situations it created for them, and how it helped us understand things from the first series better, especially Kovo’s reasons for starting the wars. I also really liked the ending. I wasn’t sure how they would fight the work and potentially defeat it, but the final battle was gut-wrenching and intriguing. Good trilogy!

[Luke Rosser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was actually the book that got me into the Spirit Animals series. I had purchased the fist book upon its release but never got around to reading it because I had forgotten about it. I had to read a book for an English class and found this one and decided to read it just to get credit, but the book was actually very cool and even though I may have started out of order, it made me want to read the whole series! Overall, the book was amazing and will always hold a special place in my heart.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

pfffffff.....

Another great start.
We are only two books in and already Conor is to sick to fight or walk for that matter.
Meilin & Kovo are hilarious!
Again with the manslaughter but also Giant spiders (shudder) people, friends, family and spirit animals torn apart, Red-Cloaks (SHANE!!!! and Devin) there are crazy zombie like ghouls, another city destroyed, underground lakes, weird and creepy creatures, and disgusting worms....

These are reading like a gossip magazine!!! Really, can't put them down!

On to the next one!!!!

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

So it probably would have helped to realize this was a series with way more background in it than this book could offer.

Oh well. It was decent, but a bit confusing, and a bit lacking in depth from what I could tell. But again, it also might have been the fact that I jumped into the middle of an established series.

[Lily Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the spirit animals books, but this one wasn't as good as some others. I thought there was too much fighting, but if you are into that, good for you. Plus, I realized later you could totally skip the whole book and go to the third and still get what was happening. But, it had it's good parts, and it was acceptable.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was better than the first one. More seemed to happen; I didn't feel like it was the same old thing going on. I am ready for the children to reunite again, though. They miss each other and I just think it's annoying when they have to be split up all the time. I forget how young they are sometimes.

[Pip Snort · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can feel the pressure build. The spirit animal bond grows weaker, the Wyrm goes stronger, is civilization on Erdas about to collapse? will there be an Erdas left to save? Will the Four Heroes survive? Victoria Schwab has done a great job of moving this second episode of the Fallen Beasts series along with imagination and drama.

[Books_Above · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we go again. I'm home. And it feels about right. Wait, what I'm even talking abt.
It's more than about right.
I just fuckin love it.

Ohh and can we take a moment to appreciate the cover. I mean. Its gorgeous. I love it. It's gorgeous. Isn't it?🥰